![]() ![]() The collection of poems is a strong reflection of the best poems of the time- with contributions from Amiri Baraka (under LeRoi Jones), Gwendolyn Brooks, Jean Toomer, and Mari Evans. ![]() Adoff's preface follows, which explains that "this anthology was created to present good, interesting, and evocative poems by Negro Americans," as "There is a need for Negroes to know of and experience through the eyes of other Negroes how it has been and how it is to be a Negro in American, and for whites to become familiar with this part of their American heritage through the vision of life as Negroes in this country see it" (iv). ![]() I read the 1968 edition, so my reading of the poems were guided by Charlemae Rollins' foreword - which situates the "dark-skinned child" as actively presenting "a culture as spontaneous as it is unrecognized" in their city home, which Rollins argues is "the environment which brings the greatest pressure and produces the greatest literature in our time" (ii). ![]()
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